Continuing the sword-collecting series, I take a look at Muramasa for the
Nintendo Wii. Before I begin, let me get it out of the way. I am a big fan of
Vanillaware’s previous title, Odin Sphere, and the overall design philosophy
of revisiting the game design challenges of two-dimensional design. It was a sad
day when developers jumped ship for three-dimensional graphics, and I find it
nice that there are still a few developers out there who, like me, would rather
see the processing power of our new consoles put to envisioning the advances of
the older two-dimensional genres.

In the case of Muramasa the current-generation variation of the side-scrolling
action games revisits the action of the arcade days of yore. With the new
technology however, comes an even faster-paced gameplay as dozens of enemies
swarm across the screen swinging swords, throwing ninja stars, and battling the
player. All of this is mixed together with a RPG-styled leveling system that
encourages item collection.

My first impression of Muramasa is the sheer depth of the artwork which
unravels like a fine painting. The orchestrated music fits perfectly with the
gameplay enhancing the appreciation of the game’s atmosphere which drips from
the screen into my eyes. Odin Sphere focused on variety by telling the tales
of different characters each with unique fighting styles. The result was a bit
rough. Some character’s combat systems were rock solid, others felt hacked
together. Muramasa solves this by focusing on just two characters at their
Obarahu style combat. The result? A very well polished combat system that is a
thrill to play.

Not everything is good in Muramasa. Some of Odin Sphere’s mechanics were
sadly cut. Planting fruit to grow new items, a mechanic I loved, is now gone; an
unbalanced difficulty system gives you the choice of slicing through enemies
like butter, moderate strategy, and insanely difficult; platform jumping is
difficult to predict due to an unclear collision detection beneath the
hand-drawn character sprite; and the battles can get tedious if played for a
long sitting. Nevertheless, I would say Muramasa is the best third party Wii
title out there – even though it makes no use of any Wii-specify hardware.

About

Joseph Hallenbeck attended the RTIS program at DigiPen Institute of Technology, studied Victorian-era literature at the University of Oxford, and graduated from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD with a B.A. in Philosophy and English Literature. He has worked as an interpretive ranger, naturalist, and caver for the National Park Service and is now employed as a Software Engineer at Research Square in Durham, NC.